


Love And Death Go Hand In Hand

by unusuallyeddie



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: A Lot of Death, Angst, Death, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, War, and adult prostitution, heavy shit, its tua what do you expect, literally pure angst, love and death are really more alike than you'd think, please someone love him, references to teenage prostitution, to love is to die ya know, very abstractly written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 08:50:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18587860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unusuallyeddie/pseuds/unusuallyeddie
Summary: To love is to die; to abstain is to live. But one can not abstain when one has a heart.





	Love And Death Go Hand In Hand

To love is to die.

Klaus learned that lesson a long time ago.

After all, love was insolent. Unpredictable. It comes and it goes in a flurry, leaving nothing but survivors and corpses behind. Love was not kind, nor charitable. 

Love was a hurricane.

~   


The first person Klaus ever loved was his brother, Ben. He loved him in a way befitting on children, innocent and pure; brotherly and soft. 

Ben listened to Klaus when no one else did. Ben was there on the cold nights after Klaus had been locked in the mausoleum. 

Klaus was there when Ben feared himself as a monster, when the other shied away when Ben spoke.

The two stuck by each others sides, the two darkest powers of the Academy, death and horror. They stuck by each other's side.

~   


Klaus stared down at Ben's grave emptily, an entirely blank expression on his face. 

“Come along, Number Four.” came Father’s voice, Reginald’s voice, as Klaus stood in the pouring rain.

He forced his feet to move, trudging back in the cold Academy, the echoing screams of the dead following wherever he went.

~   


Klaus escaped that night through the window, heading to the nearest alleyway, waiting. Just waiting. Eventually, what he was looking for came along, and Klaus sold himself, his body, for a hit. 

Klaus lost his virginity the night of Ben's funeral to a dealer in an alleyway, and he never looked back.

~   


Klaus ran away from the Academy shortly after that night. He packed up his things, and a few of everyone else’s, and walked out, flipping the bird when Reginald yelled for him to come back. Klaus didn’t care. He was so past caring.

He had quickly discovered that chemicals numbed the pain, numbed the screaming, silenced the dead. So he never strayed from his own prescriptions. He perused the streets at night, infiltrating alleyways and nightclubs and what-have-you, finding whoever was in charge and letting the man do whatever he pleased, as long as Kalus could get a hit.

Anything for another damn hit.

~   


He lived this way for years, in and out of prison, in and out of rehabilitation, in and out of the cold hands of addiction. His only constant companion was the ghost of his brother, who never left his side, even in death. Klaus never wavered, knowing this was the only way, this was the only way.

It had to be the only way.

But then Reginald died, and it all went to shit.

~   


“Why do you put that shit in your body?”   


“Why do you put that shit in your body?”   


“Why do you put that shit in your body?”

“Why do you put that shit in your body?”

Klaus didn’t, couldn’t, answer. He didn’t know how, didn’t know how to describe the dulling feeling of the alcohol, the heroin, the everything else. He couldn’t describe how it was the only way he could function, could mute out the voices in his head, all except Ben, only Ben.

No one else could ever even hope to understand the trainwreck of an enigma that was Klaus Hargreeves. 

~   


Then it kept getting worse.

~   


Turns out, getting kidnapped did wonders for ones sobriety. It was difficult, after all, to pop pills when one was tied up.

But Klaus got out, didn't he? Sure, that cop who knew Diego died, but he couldn't bring himself to dwell on it as he jimmied open the briefcase, praying for money or jewels or something worth a lot, and then he finally got it open, and he was opening it, and then-

And then he was gone.

~   


1968 is a strange time. War was a strange concept. Being stuck there, however, had to be the strangest of all.

“Just flew in?”   


And then there was  _ Dave _ . 

Dave was pure, and sweet, and saw the best in people, and was kind, and beautiful. God, he was so beautiful.

Klaus was lost from the start.

But it was the 60s, and it was hopeless, nothing would come of it, it was useless, it was pointless, until it wasn't.

Until it wasn't.

Dave kissed him in a bar.

~   


“Christ on a cracker, that was a close one, right Dave?”   


Except it wasn’t a close one. Not at all.

Klaus had been stupid enough to follow him to the front line. Because that’s what love did. It made you stupid.

So Klaus followed, and Klaus lost, and Klaus broke in the only way he hadn’t already. For Dave, beautiful, clever Dave, was gone.

Dave was gone.

~   


So Klaus returned to 2019. And he tried,  _ god  _ did he try. He had Diego tie him up. He avoided leaving the house. Ben would hype him up. 

But what was the point, if he couldn’t summon Dave? Just to say ‘I’m sorry’? Just to say ‘I love you’?   


No matter how he tried, Dave wouldn’t come. The world was ending, and Dave wouldn’t come. It would only get worse in the night, when Klaus screamed silently and clutch Dave’s tags as the faces of the dead swan around him, mouths open in endless scream, endless agony.

As Klaus was in endless agony.

~   


So, yes, Klaus learned a long time ago that love was a cruel mistress. But it appears the lesson didn’t stick until he had learned it over, and over, and over and over and over.

To love was to die, and die Klaus did. After all, it was only fitting. He was the Seance after all. 

He was a child of death, and an adult of destruction, and nothing new ever came of it, so why should it now? Why should Klaus ever be anything but what he was born to be? 

No, Klaus would always be alone, beaten down and broken. No one was coming to save him. No one was coming to fix Number Four. Why should they?

After all, love and death go hand in hand, and that’s how it always will be.

Klaus would never be an exception.

**Author's Note:**

> I love my boi and I love hurting him more


End file.
